Litigation

Mitigate! Mitigate whenever you can. Don’t go into the boxing ring until you’re in shape and ready to fight. Do whatever you can to curb the losses. It is your duty under law. Remember The Matrix and Morpheus training Neo. The show is all cool. It captures the audience, and you need to convince the jury, even when the jury are only your relatives and friends. You may need to obtain their affidavits. But it is core evidence that matters and your ability to step aside in the heat of fight to let the momentum take its toll.

Your focus should be on evidence, not emotions. Like a surgeon, you have to dissect the case. Pace and space are two keywords to remember. Either as prosecution or defence, can you keep up the pace? You’ll be flooded with papers and papers. Emotional garbage and legal conundrums. Both notices and motions. Answers upon answers, containing no relevant clue. Not to talk of endless complaints.

Everybody is innocent until proven otherwise. The burden of proof rests on you. Also, to a degree, on the victim although you may think it is the prosecutor’s job and you’ve got a stellar lawyer. No attorney has a direct access to your memory. And when it is he said, she said, and testimonies clash, you need decisive proof. Circumstantial evidence won’t cut the mustard. You need real evidence and a documentary trail to lead the judge and jury to the final verdict in your favour.

So, you need enough manpower: colleagues (associates or paralegals), competent witnesses, and experts to back up your arguments. But you also need space: to calm your mind, meditate, and contemplate the case from all angles. There is your client’s story. But every story has gaps, and not everyone is great at extracting the essence and providing a clear brief. Some are masterful story tellers. But go find what’s merely embellished and what might qualify as perjury. Some will lie by omission and mislead on purpose. You’ve got to uncover the intent. Others will simply forget important details. Be prepared to probe deeper.

And then there is the other party. There isn’t always a full disclosure. You never know what they might have up their sleeves. Your client might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the very perpetrator of substantial harm. And he or she, too, deserves a defence. There might be a black swan; not everything is as it seems. Even serial killers once were children, playing with sand. You need to find what went wrong. You need to touch the hearts of people facing the war tribunal. You must get under terrorists’ skin like Neo did with agent Smith. Unless you feel their pain, there is no conversation. No mediation, no retribution. Because jail-time alone won’t bring the corpses back. It will be safe, but only for a while. One day they will be out. Some on parole for good behaviour, others may get a presidential pardon. But they will be out unless it’s a life sentence, or the state still imposes death penalties.

Will the guilty feel remorse? Will they burn inside for their crimes, or will they shake and cry for themselves? There will be shame. A lot of it. You must clean it up. There are vampires in this world: the ever-hungry narcissists and unfeeling psychopaths. Some may never be cured. And yet they need help. Isolation keeps society safe at the taxpayers’ expense. Their hard-earned money goes to prisons, not schools. Prison guards, not doctors and teachers. As long as werewolves can be contained, help them work and pay the damages. It is not enough to convict. It is the easiest way.

Victims need healing, but treatment costs. Not every convict can pay. Both need compassion, both need love. Help them settle the case. Else pain will grow, and resentment. You’ve got to help them get the puss out, be you a lawyer or doctor. You’ve got to get to I’m sorry!, not just a formal admission of guilt. That may help with plea bargains, not the case itself. The guilty may never say it. The victims may never forgive. But both need to know they are forgiven, and that is what you can give.

No comments

Leave a reply